Pulse Check: Democrats step up attacks on Price

The author of the law that shed sunlight on Rep. Tom Price’s health care stock trades has been calling on the SEC to investigate — and more Democrats are following suit as Price faces his first confirmation hearing Wednesday.

"It’s shameful," Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) on POLITICO's "Pulse Check" podcast said of the more than $300,000 in health care trades made by Donald Trump’s pick to run HHS. Slaughter authored the 2012 STOCK Act that requires lawmakers to disclose certain transactions — and which sparked a series of stories on Price’s investments.

At Wednesday's hearing of the Senate HELP Committee, Price will face questions about his Obamacare replacement plan and his calls to overhaul Medicare, among other topics. But Price's stock trades are expected to be a key part of Democrats' attack after some on Tuesday argued Price may have illegally based legislation on his investments.

The news is causing heartburn for some Republicans, even if they're not sure the Democratic attacks are fair. "Members are put in a position where the presumption is … you're guilty, now prove you're innocent," Rodney Whitlock, a former GOP Senate staffer, said on the podcast. "If there is something bad that happened there, he's not going to get confirmed, and it could get worse for him," he acknowledged.

Trump’s transition team has said that Price consistently followed ethical and legal guidelines. And on Tuesday, it demanded CNN retract a story that it said improperly “omitted facts and drew conclusions in an effort to attack” Price.

Slaughter has spent more than a week calling for the SEC to investigate whether Price's legislation benefited his hundreds of thousands of dollars in health care investments — a call echoed by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and other Democrats on Tuesday. "If he knew about it, it could very well be a violation of the law," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

Slaughter pointed to Price's purchase last year of more than $50,000 in shares of an Australian biomedical firm, Innate Immunotherapeutics — whose largest shareholder is Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), another Trump supporter. Both bought the company’s shares for pennies on the dollar, and the stock has since doubled in price.

Another concern for Slaughter: Price's purchase of $2,698 in shares of Zimmer Biomet, a medical-device company that stood to benefit from legislation that he introduced — a week later — to delay new Medicare regulations that would've cut into the company's profits. Zimmer later donated to Price's reelection campaign.

Phil Blando, a spokesman for the Trump transition, has defended each of Price's transactions that have received scrutiny. For instance, Blando said Price's broker purchased shares of Zimmer as a routine rebalancing of Price's portfolio without the lawmaker’s knowledge — and the transition team asked CNN to retract the story Tuesday night.

But Slaughter said that argument is "not very compelling.” Given Price's job in Congress — and the job he eventually sought in the Trump administration — Price needed to be clear that he couldn't invest in any stock affected by his work, she said.

"I find that the weakest of answers and something that you would really struggle to come up with," Slaughter added.

Responding to the criticism, the Trump transition team pointed to trades by Schumer, Sens. Tom Carper and Sheldon Whitehouse that stood to benefit from their legislation. All three Democratic senators defended their actions.

"There's a glass house aspect to it," said Whitlock, the former GOP staffer. "Are all members OK with having their finances looked at at the level that Price is going through right now?" He argued that lawmakers touch so many different pieces of legislation, often without having even read the bills, it’s easy to connect the dots and create a misleading narrative.

"The long view conclusion to this for members and senior staff, the only way they can trade is to be in blind trusts to take these jobs," Whitlock added. "Because there's nothing else, there's no way that you won't be able to line up occasional circumstances that don't 'look bad.'"

But Slaughter, who doesn’t trade stocks affected by her work, thinks that's missing the mark.

“I own only three shares of stock," Slaughter said — all from Proctor & Gamble, where she used to work and which she's "kept forever."

"If you're going to clean the swamp, as the president-elect very much wants to, I think this has to be a part of it," she added.